


Not You

by Qpenguin98



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Anxiety, Dissociation, Grocery Store, Self-Harm, Trans Male Character, dave works in a grocery store, hhhhahaa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-11 16:42:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5633788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qpenguin98/pseuds/Qpenguin98
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When all you want is sleep after an eight hour shift but your friends want to hang, how can you say no?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not You

It’s too much loud loud loud stop talking stop dinging stop stop stop stop stop feels bad too dry too wet too sticky too too too too stop please stopleastopleastop

Slow down please let this be the last one last one no more little break let’s joke laugh please don’t yell sorry the cupcakes are bad please don’t yell sorry sorry you’re sorry you’re sorry it costs too much you’re sorry the coupon doesn’t work you’re sorry you can’t do anything here please take it up to customer service sorry sorry sorry sorrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy/

Fast move slow slow too slow just home please home please-

You clock off as soon as your lane’s cleared. No one left means you go home. Six couldn’t come quick enough.

You get home and Bro isn’t there and you’re so fucking thankful that you get to lie down in peace. The shoes are pinching your heels and you were misgendered too many fucking times to count and you just want to curl up in a little ball and disappear.

Your phone dings and you could ignore it, but they would know and you can’t have that.

John: hey!

John: i know you’re off work and i was wondering if you wanted to hang out with jade rose and i.

John: i mean if not it’s okay i just wanted to let the other two know.

All you want is sleep because you have school tomorrow and your everything hurts and you’re sporting a headache that’s verging on migraine and you could say no but you definitely can’t.

Dave: naw man whatre you thinking of doing

Dave: im up for whatever

John: that’s great!

John: we were worried you wouldn’t want to because you’ve been working all weekend so this is good!

You couldn’t have said no.

John: i was thinking that rose picks us all up and we go walk around that grocery dollar store place and maybe get some food and find stupid shit to do.

John: sound good?

Maybe it’s a cruel joke that they’re going to a grocery store or maybe they really don’t understand how much you hate your job.

Probably the latter.

Dave: yeah

Dave: we talking right now or

John: yeah uhhhh.

John: we’re kind of already outside of your apartment?

You rip yourself out of your uniform as quickly as you can. Binder be damned, you won’t be able to breathe if you keep wearing it now, so you shove yourself in the tightest sports bra you own and throw on a baggy shirt and hope they don’t mention it.

You’re down the stairs in a blur that you won’t remember later on and that’s the beginnings of bad but you’re too fucked up to care right now.

You shuffle into the backseat of the car next to jade and your head meets her shoulder like it was made to go there.

“Well look who finally decided to get down the stairs. Geez, what took so long?” John’s voice sounds like one of your customers and sop nope you’re with friends nope not today.

“My life is an existential nightmare that you have no understanding of, Egbert.”

“You seem really tired. Are you sure you don’t want to hang out another time?” Jade sounds worried and a little bit disappointed and fuck this so fucking hard.

“I’m already in the car, Harley. It’s too late, you can’t get rid of me that quickly.”

“As if we’d ever,” spouts back Rose. “You wound me, David.”

“Not my name. Now please drive before I have to shove my under-practiced ass in the driver’s seat and do it for you.

They chat while she drives and you pitch in sometimes but for the most part you’re quiet. The McDonalds you end up getting tastes like sand but you shove another handful of fries in your mouth nonetheless and drink another drink of soda that makes your throat feel like it’s going to jump out of your mouth as they drive and throw fries at each other and you feel sick to your stomach as you subconsciously scratch at the spot on your arm under your shirt you always end up rubbing raw.

The park you stop at is empty as you sit in the car, occasionally rolling down the window for fresh air. Jade looks at you as you steal some of her food that somehow tastes more real than yours and you can feel her eyes boring into you.

Rose hands you her water bottle to drink from so you stop sounding like a sand demon and you thank her with a long winded metaphor about sand dunes inside your throat that she and everyone else stops listening to about halfway through so you just let your voice die back down and listen as they laugh and joke and you don’t really feel real as the drive to the grocery store that’s literally right next to the one you work at.

At least you like this one better.

Jade wants to show rose the shimmery purple vodka that reminded her of her and you bite back your choking of them picking it up and tipping it to watch the glitter because you know how much anxiety it gives the employees to see teenagers with the liquor. You hate you fears of getting kicked out and you hate yourself and you really really want to go home and curl up with your headphones.

The dollar store is next and you find some scrub brush to slam into your hand repeatedly while still looking cool but your mind is out the window and the hand you’re slamming it into is raw and numb and looks dry and chapped. You keep hitting yourself with it and you think you stop to show John and he looks at you with this look like he knows and your self-righteous smirk falls and you think your tongue is doing something weird like saying Bro needs you home soon and he just nods and it looks sad and you’d like to be you again sometime within the next decade.

Rose buys Jade bubbles and you buy yourself a pack of gum mints that melt or whatever dumb shit you just wanted to look normal.

You get home somehow, the car, probably, and up the stairs and you wave a hello to Bro before dropping onto the bed.

The headphones are on your ears and Pandora is playing the wrong wrong too loud playlist and you change it with minimal looking at the screen to that stupid indie one that plays soft guitar and you feel like you’re choking on your brain.

Your arms bleed into the tissues you’ve got held against them and feel more like you because you’ve tried to not do this to make you you and it feels so so so so so good and you don’t even feel the pain you just feel the relief in your brain and it’s good good good.

No work just you.

No them just you.

No sand just you.

And you feel good and tired and ready and you fall asleep with your headphones still on and your music still playing and the unbandaged arms that have stopped bleeding out and in the air.

The not-you you comes right back in the morning.

**Author's Note:**

> i work at a grocery store  
> i really fucking hate it  
> welcome to a couple different real life experiences all mashed together as one.  
> a lady hit her kid in line todqay  
> it was super duoper cool


End file.
